“Your birthday is a week earlier than hers.”
“Only one week.”
Just a week. No matter what my dad said, we were the same age. The image of a worry-free life with an easygoing kid sister shattered to pieces in my mind.
“Sorry for the confusion,” said Akiko. “Once she grew up, Saki stopped letting me take photos of her, and that old picture was the only one I could show you.”
With a hand at her cheek, Akiko glanced at her daughter as if she didn’t know what to do with her. She seemed to have guessed what Dad and I were whispering about.
I wasn’t fond of getting my photo taken, either, so I could understand. The thing that baffled me was why Akiko had shown Dad a picture of her daughter as a little girl when she first told him about her. It was like she had no common sense.
“I’m not photogenic. I always look like I’m angry,” said Ayase.
“Oh, um, okay.”
Saki—no, I didn’t want to get too familiar—Ayase smiled like she was embarrassed.
She had a pretty face by conventional beauty standards. I could understand why a guy like me, who wasn’t particularly good-looking, wouldn’t want his picture taken, but it didn’t make much sense for her. I decided to keep that thought to myself, though. I wasn’t going to push my preconceptions about what pretty girls did or didn’t like on her.
Ayase pressed a hand to her chest.
“This is such a relief.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“We’re going to be living together, so I wasn’t sure what I’d do if you turned out to be scary.”
“Oh, I don’t know. The scariest people look nice on the outside.”
“Taichi was just telling us about you. He said you work part-time practically every day, and you’re saving up for college. You sound like a pretty serious person.”
“Actually, just ten minutes ago, my senior coworker got mad at me for being irresponsible.”
“Your dad said you get good grades at school, too.”
“A lot of criminals are smart.”
“Ah-ha-ha.”
Ayase daintily put a hand to her mouth and giggled.
Dad and Akiko, watching us nervously, smiled in relief.
My first meeting with my stepsister went relatively smoothly.
It was pretty different from what I’d rehearsed in my mind beforehand, but I thought I did a good job adapting. By the looks of things, I thought we could manage a nice, neutral relationship.
That first gathering of the Asamuras and the Ayases continued amicably, and we decided to call it a night a little after ten, since we all had to start early the next day.
Dad and Akiko said they would use the restroom and pay the check, so Ayase and I went outside to wait for them.
The Dogenzaka area of Shibuya was lively even late at night. After taking in the scenery—loud, drunk men, women in gaudy clothes, and workers calling customers into their shops—I glanced at my stepsister beside me.
She was clad in an eye-catching outfit, no different from those passing by. Exactly the kind of girl I thought I’d never be involved with.
But our conversation inside the restaurant had given me a sense of her deep intellect.
You couldn’t judge a book by its cover. Appearance had nothing to do with a person’s personality or manners, though it’d be kind of nice if it was that simple.
Still, I sensed something more behind her friendly attitude, an uneasiness that I found hard to describe.
And it wasn’t long before I found out what it was.
“Hey, Asamura,” she said. “I want to talk before our parents come out.”
“Is there something you can’t tell them?”
“Yeah. To be specific, it’s something I can only tell you.”
“I won your trust with just that brief conversation? Wow, I must be amazing.”
“I can tell from the way you talk and joke around and your expression that you’re pretty chill. That’s why I think you’ll totally understand what I’m about to say.”
“Oh…”
That made sense. Basically, she was like me. That would explain the uneasiness I’d been feeling.
And that’s when she said it. Looking back, her words must have set the tone for our relationship as siblings.
“I won’t expect anything from you, and I don’t want you to expect anything from me.”
“You understand exactly what I mean by that, right?” she asked.
I saw my face steadily reflected in her eyes as she waited for my response.
Of course, my answer was clear.
Her words might have sounded like a cold “stay away from me” to some people, but to me, it was the most honest proposal I could imagine.
“I’m relieved to hear you say that,” I replied. “I can finally relax.”
“Yeah. Me too.”
“We’ll stick to that rule, then, Ayase.”
“Thanks, Asamura.”
And that’s how I, Yuuta Asamura, and my stepsister, Saki Ayase, began our relationship as stepsiblings.